SunstarTV bureau: India has contributed an additional USD 500,000 to the United Nations Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism, taking the country’s donation to the UN office set up to combat terrorism to over USD 1 million.
India said it was keen to continue working with the UN office to further the common objective of combatting terrorism.
“India is proud to contribute USD 500,000 to the UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism,” the Permanent Mission of India to the UN tweeted.
With this amount, India’s total contribution to it so far is USD 1.05 million.
“Keen to continue our work with @UN_OCT on specific programs/projects to further our common objective to combat terrorism, the Mission said, referring to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT).
In line with General Assembly resolution 71/291 that established UNOCT in June 2017, the UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism was transferred to UNOCT.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti tweeted: “India infuses an additional USD 500,000 into @UN Counter Terrorism Trust Fund. India continues its strong & focused commitment to help member states build capacity to prevent & counter terrorism.
He added that more than one million dollars has been contributed to the UNOCT by India till date, including for Africa.
The UN Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism was established by the Secretary-General in 2009. It receives funding for UNOCT’s programme of work, providing technical assistance and capacity building support to Member States through the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) and the Special Projects and Innovation Branch (SPIB), according to its website.
The UNOCT has received USD 236 million in hard pledges and contributions from 31 donors as of December 2019, through the Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism established in 2009, as well as through other allocations for UNOCT.
Of this amount, USD 163.4 million has been received in cash while the remainder is to be received in future periods.
The UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, established in 2017, enhances coordination and coherence across the Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact entities to ensure the balanced implementation of the four pillars of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.
It strengthens the delivery of United Nations counter-terrorism capacity-building assistance to Member States; improve visibility, advocacy and resource mobilisation for United Nations counter-terrorism efforts.
It also ensure that due priority is given to counterterrorism across the United Nations system and that the important work on preventing violent extremism is firmly rooted in the strategy.
(Sources: PTI)
